


in the light of day

by pendules



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-01
Updated: 2011-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-25 14:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendules/pseuds/pendules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school AU. <i>It takes being away from Cas for a summer for Dean to come to terms with his feelings.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	in the light of day

Dean spends the entire summer freaking out. He helps out at home even more than usual, volunteers to make breakfast almost every morning, tags along with his dad to the garage. It's all just to keep himself busy. To keep his mind busy and his hands busy. Because he needs a distraction. (Cas always says when he's concentrating on something, he gets so engrossed in it that he forgets everything else around him exists. But he's not thinking about that; he's not. That's the whole point of this.) Sam eyes him suspiciously sometimes, but he's good at dodging any prying questions. His dad doesn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary, but he's his dad, and like always, he probably knows exactly what Dean's doing but also knows he's not ready to talk about it. John is discerning like that and Dean doesn't know whether to love him or hate him for it most of the time.

(He wonders sometimes about if his mom was here. If he'd want to talk to her about it. He thinks he would. He thinks she'd understand perfectly, maybe she'd help him come to terms with it himself. Sometimes he misses her so much, it feels like there's a physical hole inside him.)

So, he distracts himself. And it works, for the most part. But every night, he's all alone in bed with just his thoughts for company. And the thoughts he's having these days are scaring the holy shit out of him.

*

The thing is, Dean's never had a best friend before Cas.

Or, well, Sam was his best friend. But that's different. Their relationship transcends any of the labels he can think to put on it. Sam is everything to Dean. And for a long time, he was. His family was everything. After his mom died, it took years to get back to anything resembling normal. His dad was a mess. Sam was withdrawn and isolated. And Dean was barely holding it all together. But they did. And they got through it. And they made it out the other side, together. Dean thinks they're stronger for it now.

It started changing around the time he started high school. Sammy started making friends at school, finally. And he was doing better. He was doing really well. He was happy. He thinks that's what made his dad stop drinking so much too. And he finally started holding down a steady job. And Dean... Dean met Cas.

He was a loner too. But not because people thought he was a freak, but because he preferred it that way. Dean was drawn to him immediately, with his eloquence and politeness, his messy black hair and sharp blue eyes, the way his nose was in a book ninety-nine percent of the time but he still seemed to observe everything happening around him.

He was in Dean's English class, and every time Dean used to sit and wish that he'd answer a question, because he liked hearing him talk about poetry and prose and language. It kind of made him want to know more too, even if English had always been a nuisance to him before.

The first time they talk to each other is in the parking lot in the fourth week of school.

"I like your car."

Dean turns around. Cas is looking kind of unsure, like he hadn't meant to say it. (Dean thinks about the all the times he'd meant to say something to Cas too, in the hallway or after class, and he couldn't work up the nerve.)

"Um, thanks. It's my dad's." He feels the usual rush of pride he gets when someone compliments the Impala, but somehow, it's amplified because it's coming from Cas.

"I mean," Cas starts saying, and he's coming closer, like Dean's tone was inviting (and it was, it definitely was). "I don't know much about cars." He shrugs apologetically.

"My dad's a mechanic. I helped him rebuild it from the ground up a couple years ago."

"Wow, really? That's awesome."

Dean kind of blushes despite himself.

"Yeah, it's pretty cool. Not as cool as Shakespeare's 29th Sonnet though."

Cas kind of lets out a surprised laugh at that, hand unconsciously finding the book in his jacket pocket. Dean realises that this the first time he's heard Cas laugh for real. He wants to hear that sound again and again. When Cas meets his eyes, he smiles back at him.

"Um," Cas says when the moment's gone on too long. "I should go."

"Yeah, uh, me too. I'll see you in class."

"Bye, Dean."

"Bye."

By December, they were spending all their free time with each other.

*

It's been two years. Two years of driving around and going to movies and Cas reading passages to him on park benches and going fishing with his dad and Sam.

Cas spends a lot of time at Dean's house. His foster family's not bad, he says, but they don't really pay too much attention to him. Dean thinks they must be crazy. He tells him this when he's feeling down about the whole thing, and it always gets him to smile.

Cas goes to a creative writing camp that summer though and it's the first time in a long while (two years), Dean gets to be alone and really think about his life.

His family's doing well, and he is so grateful for that, he is, but he's come to realise that he exists outside of them too. And that is actually scary. Taking charge of his own life and his own destiny is a prospect he doesn't want to have to face. He wants it to be more certain than that. It's gotten more complicated. There are all these possibilities now. His dad asks him about college every now and then, asks him where he's thinking about, what he's thinking about doing. He doesn't push, because he's John, but he gets this hopeful look in his eyes. Even Sam doesn't stop imagining the future. And there's Cas too.

For a long time, it was simple. As long as his family was okay, he was too. When they weren't, it was bad, but at least he was sure where he stood, what he was supposed to be. Cas is this whole new, unexpected variable. And he doesn't understand how to deal with it a lot of the time. He doesn't understand what they are sometimes. And maybe they don't have to _be_ anything. He needs Cas now. And he thinks Cas needs him too. But he doesn't know if it'll last. He wants it to. Every fibre in him wants it to last. But maybe he wants more too.

And that's the strangest feeling. Wanting like that. Having the possibility. Having the chance to get something that's his and his alone and not feeling guilty about it.

It's the night after he leaves when he realises he's in love with Cas. He always has been.

*

He paces his room all morning. Sam knocks on the door and asks if he wants to do something today. They go to a movie, and he spends the entire time thinking about Cas's running commentary on the bad movies they'd go to see and trying to stifle their giggles while people shushed them harshly. He thinks about walking down empty streets afterwards in the dark. Wonders what would happen if, one of those times, he'd maybe grabbed his arm, maybe said, softly, shakily, "Hey," maybe breathed in deep before tugging Cas up to meet his lips...

He shakes the image away.

*

He tries reading when he gets home. He imagines Cas reciting every word. He puts the book down. TV is a no-go, because all he can think about is falling asleep on the couch watching old Westerns, and waking up with Cas's hair brushing his face, and his head on Dean's shoulder.

He kind of wonders if he's going insane. Or if this is some kind of separation anxiety. He googles it, and comes up with nothing conclusive.

He stares at his phone. Almost dials Cas's number. He writes him an email instead, rambles on and on about seeing shadows in the corners of his eyes, feeling like his past is replaying in front of him for him to examine, wondering if changing one tiny moment can alter the course of your entire life.

(Of course, it can. He knows that far too well.)

He doesn't send it.

There's a picture of his mom holding him as a baby on his bedside table. Next to it is one of him and Sam and John and Cas on a fishing trip the summer before. He sighs. He goes to bed.

*

He throws himself into various projects starting the day after. It's a few weeks before he hears from Cas.

*

Cas is on his porch a month and a half after he left.

"Hey," he says. His eyes are bright. He looks content, but a little nervous somehow too, not unlike the first time they'd spoken to each other. Maybe he'd noticed the weird tension on the phone the last few weeks too. Maybe it wasn't just from Dean's side.

"Hey. Welcome back."

"Yeah. Home sweet home, right?" Cas says sarcastically. Then he asks seriously, "How've you been?"

"Okay. I've been keeping busy."

"That's good."

"So, you had a good time?"

"Yeah, it was... educational. You would've loved it."

Dean laughs, glad that their old familiarity is creeping back into their words. He sits down on the porch swing and Cas joins him.

"It was weird. Being alone," Cas admits.

"I bet you made a ton of friends though," Dean says with a knowing grin.

"That's not what I mean, Dean. I just... I used to be so good at being by myself. I don't know what happened."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"I don't know. You tell me," Cas replies, looking intently up at him.

"Well, it's good being able to rely on yourself. But it's good knowing you don't have to all the time too."

"You're oddly smart sometimes, you know that?"

"Well, you wouldn't be friends with me if I weren't."

"You're damn right." Cas smiles earnestly at him, then turns his head away again, looking down.

" _God_ , Cas," Dean says suddenly. And that's it. He's made up his mind. He's not going to start to say his name and then stop halfway through. He's not going to start dialling the numbers but then cut the connection. He's not going to write out all his deepest, truest thoughts and then leave them unsent.

It's time.

"I can't do this anymore."

Cas looks up, startled.

"Do what? Dean—"

"I don't want to spend the summer freaking out about missing you. I don't want to pretend this isn't what this is, that I don't feel what I feel."

"And what do you feel?" Cas asks, in a nervous whisper.

Dean pulls him in for a deep kiss then, one hand cupping his cheek, and the other finding warm skin where his t-shirt is riding up at his hip.

"Oh," Cas says when he finally moves back an inch to look at him.

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Does that mean you're good with, um, this? And you'd be okay with it maybe happening again?"

"Only if by 'again' you mean in the next two seconds."

Dean grins so wide, Cas ends up bringing their lips together himself this time.

*

Dean tells him he loves him later, when they're curled up together in his bed, and the look of wonder and joy on his face before Cas kisses him and tells him the four words he'd been dying to hear back — that look is kind of worth everything. The panic and the fear and the years spent thinking he'd never, ever have anything like this. It's worth Sam's face at breakfast before he exclaims, "I knew it!" And his dad rolling his eyes, trying not to make a big deal out of it, but clapping Cas on the back (reminding him he's part of the family, always has been), nodding at Dean, not approval (he's already had that ten times over) but reassurance.

Reassurance that he's allowed to have this, he's allowed to be happy. And he is; he finally really, really is.


End file.
